Arthur Coleman Danto (January 1, 1924 – October 25, 2013) was an American art critic, philosopher, and professor at Columbia University.

While an undergraduate he intended to become an artist, and began making prints in the Expressionist style in 1947 (these are now great rarities).

[1] From 1949 to 1950, Danto studied in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship under Jean Wahl,[3] and in 1951 returned to teach at Columbia.

[1] He was twice awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected in 1980.

"[5] While science deals with empirical problems, philosophy according to Danto examines indiscernible differences that lie outside of experience.

Non-conventional definitions take a concept like the aesthetic as an intrinsic characteristic in order to account for the phenomena of art.

Danto wrote on this subject in several of his works and a detailed treatment is to be found in Transfiguration of the Commonplace.

"[11] The 1964 essay "The Artworld" in which Danto coined the term "artworld" (as opposed to the existing "art world", though they mean the same), by which he meant cultural context or "an atmosphere of art theory",[12] first appeared in The Journal of Philosophy and has since been widely reprinted.

)"[13] According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Danto's definition has been glossed as follows: something is a work of art if and only if (i) it has a subject (ii) about which it projects some attitude or point of view (has a style) (iii) by means of rhetorical ellipsis (usually metaphorical) which ellipsis engages audience participation in filling in what is missing, and (iv) where the work in question and the interpretations thereof require an art historical context (Danto with Noël Carroll).

"[18] Arthur Danto was an art critic for The Nation from 1984 to 2009, and also published numerous articles in other journals.